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6 thoughts on “What is the range on a Magic Stone when hurled from a sling?”

aluva mbukusays:

I think Mr. Mearls should reconsider that ruling. Otherwise, no one will ever use the sling to hurl the stone, and it would have been a vain and useless part of the spell. I thought this guy nailed it:

“120 feet (probably)
D&D 5e has two different kinds of range. Weapon range (expressed as short range/maximum range – PHB 147), and spell range (expressed as a single value – PHB 202-203 and in spell descriptions).
A thrown stone, as an improvised weapon (PHB 147-148) has the weapon range of 20/60.
A Magic Stone, as per the spell’s description has a spell range of 60 feet. So we can infer that the spell range of a thrown Magic Stone equals the maximum range of a normal thrown stone.
If we extend this to using the Magic Stone as ammunition for a sling, it would seem reasonable to apply the same principle, and say that the sling stone’s maximum range of 120 feet is the spell range of a Magic Stone thrown from a sling.
I say probably as this is an extension of the principles of the RAW, but as far as I know this principle is not spelled out in the currently-published rules.”

“You or someone else can make a ranged spell attack with one of the pebbles by trowing it or hurling it is has a range of 60ft”, It does however use the spellcasters ability modifier to the attack not the normal attackers ability on the. The attack uses the regular 30/120ft on a hurl however you could rule it as a 60/120ft.

My DM had already ruled that the range of Magic Stone when hurled by a Sling would be a flat 120 feet based on the reasoning from the gentleman I quoted above. My DM specifically found that it didn’t make any sense for the Sling range to be worse than the thrown range. I think she made the correct ruling. It seems clear that the intent of the spell is for maximum range for a thrown stone, but the implication is that the language was simply erroneously left out for the Sling range, since nothing in the spell indicates why it would make any sense to favor the thrown range over the hurled range.

Magic Stone gives some much-needed ranged attack capabilities for a Druid such as mine, who otherwise is stuck with 30-foot maximum without having to hurl a sling at disadvantage, which is ridiculous. Under Mr. Mearls’s ruling, however, I will most likely never use Magic Stone with a Sling, unless some unlikely situation comes up where I have to make a desperation attack at disadvantage from 61 feet through 120 feet.

Mr. Mearls’s ruling, given without any reasoning whatsoever, probably is based on that since the range of a hurled stone was omitted in the language of the spell, then such range should be pursuant to the default rules for Slings. However, it seems to make more sense to ask WHY the Sling range was omitted. It seems that it cannot have been omitted intentionally, because of all the confusion that has resulted therefrom. Therefore, it only makes sense that the Sling range was omitted unintentionally. It would seem to be a better idea to find out what the intent of the spell designers was. I would note that Mr. Mearls’s name is not listed in the credits for the Elemental Evil supplement as a designer of that supplement. Therefore, he is commenting on something he did not create. I would be more interested in learning what the designers of that spell intended.